Hi everyone - just found this website last night. What a great find. The forum looks new - hope you will be able to give me some decent advice.

I've been training 4/5 times per week for about 7 years and consider myself intermediate/advanced for most exercises. i'm constantly changing my routines in search of the ultimate workout and today start my new 3-day split. i'm going back to legs, push, pull on a three day on, one day off split.

currently i weight 83kg and in my opinion have a surfers body - slim build but with athletic look. i'm wanting to add some serious muscle to my hamstrings and calves as they are the weakest part of my body.

just wondered if anyone could tell me what they think of the routine below and the weight i am using in relation to the other muscles i.e. i squat 200kg but can only perform romanian deadlifts with 120kg - making my quads much stronger than my hamstrings. IS THIS NORMAL?

It does sound like they are lagging a little. Your lower back and abs could have something to fo with it, for the hams anyway. The routine looks even now, but maybe int he past you didn't work the hams and calves much.

If you are feeling adventurous and depending on what you currenlty do, you can try a wider stance squat (powerlifting squat) where you sit back more and use your hamstrings/glutes to squat. This would help bring up the hamstrings I am sure.

thanks guys - appreciate the input. i've always trained legs but must admit i have concentrated on building big quads due to skinnt leg syndrome. whilst i have always included leg curls in my routine i have only recently added romanian deadlifts (straight-leg deadlifts) to my routine and am some months behind.

did the above routine last night and have to say found it much easier than my normal routine. i tended to over-complicate things. i'm eating every 2-3 hours and taking two/three suppliments per day. i hold good form and try to do 10-6 reps or until failure.

Something I'm curious about, and this is a general question for anyone, is how do you warm up, if at all? And I'm not talking about a pre-workout warmup. Do you do a couple lightweight sets for each exercise before moving on to your "real" 3-4 sets at 6-10 reps or do you just start in on each exercise? If you do a few light sets to warm up your muscles, do you do them before each exercise? And if so, are warms up sets necessary for the last few exercises of a workout session since your body is probably about as warmed up as it can get?

That's something I can't recall seeing discussed. It usually left out of most articles. I'm guessing it's something basic that most people are just supposed to "know."

Good question Drew. It usually isn't discussed much. Here's how I do it. Let's take bench press because that seems to be everyones favorite, but it could apply to anything. First, after a general warmup, I take an empty bar and do some movements, maybe 8-10 or so, I don't really count. It's just to get some blood moving in there and reeinforc my movement patterns. Ten I'll do some dislocates (shoulders) with a dowel or towel. and repeat 1 or two times. Then I'll gradually add on weight with 3 or so reps until I'm close to m workset (s). Now, if I follow up with, say DB overhead presse, I will only do one light warmup just to get the motor patterns down, then go right into it

I like to do all my warmups at the beginning. I do more for the first thing I am going to do since I seem to need more at the beginning. I do my splits by muscles that work together. If you do a different routine, you might be better off doing it different. I think doing a warmup before each excercise is just as good though. You just have to do more when you start. Or you can walk a few minutes on the treadmill and then do 1 set before each. I like to stretch a little myself, but some people don't like that. It is mostly personal preference. The most important thing is to get the blood flowing and put a little tension on the muscle before you really work it.

i always do 5-10 mins cardio to get my heart rate up; usually on a bike, treadmill or rower. never the cross-trainer as i think they're a waste of space.

then i will lightly stretch the muscles i intend to train - no more than 6 or 7 seconds as i believe, in my experience, that this can affect the weights you can lift.

as has been stated above do some movements to get the blood flowing but don't add any weight and then jump straight in. my plan at the moment means that whatever exercise i do i only perform a maximum of 30 reps (in total) so that could be two sets of 15 or 3 sets of 10 etc.

its pull today... i'll post that in a second. additionally if anyone wants to try these workouts for a couple of weeks and give me any feedback that would be appreciated.

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